Sunday, July 13, 2014

Back to my regularly scheduled program

My normal routine has been anything but normal over the past 4 weeks. I feel that I've been rushing between things but thankfully now I get the chance to slow down, regroup and plan what is to come. The end of June and beginning of July saw me quickly making tote bags for the teachers end of year gifts
 and sew together most of the kids art quilt for Sunshine's school.
Plus there was Jammer's class picnic (I was a class mom this year) and Sunshine's Pre-K graduation.
Within days of then end of the school year, we headed out on vacation to Orlando.We had a terrific visit with one of Sunshine's China sisters who lives in the area.
 This year we only went to Legoland (which is fantastic BTW if you haven't been there yourself)
 Jammer loves being the master of the maps.
 And both kidlets were excited about the new Star Wars section of Miniland.
 This park is all about the kids 2-12 and we will definitely be going again in the future.
 We also spent a morning playing some mini golf. Hubs and I lurve mini golf (I don't play big people golf myself.)
 The kidlets did much better this time at actually playing but there was still a lot of golf-hockey going on too.
 After that we indulged Jammer's wish for go-carting. Here he got to drive one himself on a smaller track. We also did a lot of laps on the bigger track...one grown up with one child each and since both of us were driving it was impossible to take pictures of the action.
 We also fed the baby alligators while we were there.
 Sunshine needed a boost to be able to see over the fence and properly aim her fishing pole feeder at the critters.
 The only other part we visited was Sea World. We missed this park on our last trip to Florida and since our kids are animal fanatics this was of course a hit.
 They saw lots and lots of animals!
 And we of course roe a few rides. My feerless rollercoaster loving girl went on every one she was big enough for.
 But most of our trip was spent in the pool just swimming and more swimming.
 Sunshine made amazing progress and quickly gave up using her swim belt, was brave enough to even swim under water a bit and both of them jumped in canon ball style over and over and over and...you get the idea.
 Now that we are home and the normal routine has returned I'm back to working towards crossing items off my To Do list. On that list is:

Quilting and binding the Spellbound quilt for Sarah's Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge. My quilts are being sent to her for her group's October trip to help Hurricane Sandy survivors so I got a bit of a break on the deadline plus I had to wait for Penelope's upgrade to get done before I could load this on my frame.
 I also need to quilt and bind the EMS/Fire quilt. My boss decided not to hold the raffle during the industry trade show a few weeks ago so I got another reprieve on getting it finished. The forecast for that weekend wasn't pretty (our booth was outside) and so the expected turnout for the show wasn't as usual and there was no way we would have raised what we had hoped for at that event.
Instead he decided to promote it more amongst our customers and at a couple of upcoming industry trade shows and have the drawing at the last one.

In addition these are what are the other things on that To Do list:

1. Complete and mail the June Primary Bee blocks. I'm still waiting to hear what the July block will be.

2. Get caught up on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. I need to make the May - Green, June - Yellow and July - Red blocks.

3. Finish piecing and then quilt and bind the kids art quilt for Sunshine's school. They were happy to have it hanging at the school for a few weeks for everyone to see the progress so far but now it is time to get it done and hung permanently in the school's lobby.
4. Paint my kitchen. I'm embarrassed to admit that now just over 3 years in this new house and we still have 3 rooms that haven't been painted. The kitchen paint color has been the hardest to decide on based on the 1st floor layout and the way the open concept rooms come together and after numerous sample testings, I've finally found the perfect one.

5. Paint the kids bathroom and the dining room - after the hubs finally gets the wainscoting up that is.

There are other things on my list but that is all I'm tackling in the coming weeks. Wish me luck in getting them all done.

Stunning Stitchin Sunday resumes this afternoon and you won't want to miss the giveaway that starts tomorrow. See you back here then for the fun announcement.

6 of you added your own colorful comments:

Vroomans' Quilts said...

As good as it is to be busy, it is just as good to get a chance to breath.

beaquilter said...

awww you went to legoland!! awesome. I took the kids to the one in DK when we went there a few yrs ago, it changed SO much since I was a kid, the kids loved it.
so you know what LEGO means right?

Val's Quilting Studio said...

I'm impressed you got any sewing in at all. See ya this afternoon!

Linda said...

Wow, you sure have been busy. Legoland must be just a dream for the kids.

Sarah Craig said...

Looks like you have all been having a great time! And that's an ambitious list you've got going - FYI it's much easier to paint before he puts up the wainscoting - just mark a line where the center of the wainscoting will be and paint close to it with each color. The wainscoting will cover up any unpainted wall and you won't get paint on your wainscoting!

Vicki said...

Looks like a wonderful time was had by all! You jumped right back into things...what a trouper.